The Edges of the Earth
by Isis Rae
Summary: Loki, The God of Mischief, has been cast down to Earth and into the company of a girl trying to overcome an unfortunate situation of her own. But she also holds the only key back to Asgard. If only it were that simple. Together they'll uncover a secret that's been waiting for them to arrive for many centuries. Loki/OC. M to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods/

they kill us for their sport"

- King Lear Act 4 Scene 1, 32-37

I didn't believe in destiny until now.

The sky was open, a thousand black and beckoning clouds twisting in on one another. My hair ripped around with the wind, a million sounds raging around me and I heard nothing but the ringing in my ears. I closed my eyes as he hugged me closer to him. And all I could think about was the swing outside my childhood home back in Maine.

Was this what it was like to die? The world fell away and suddenly I was back on the wooden plank, twisting the adjacent ropes and then letting myself go, twirling around, throwing my head back and laughing wildly. I felt like this now. Wild as I twisted round and then round again, the world an indistinguishable blur.

Destiny. Humans are defined by moments. This was mine. It was strange to think that my stars had led me here. That someone eons ago had decided this for me. And what choice did I have?

"Keep close!" he yelled.

Fool. How could I not?

I buried my face deeper into his chest, breathing in his scent, reveling in the familiar before everything would be taken from me. My swing set in Maine. The summer ending as the cool breeze toyed with my jeans and the strings of my sweatshirt. How happy I was then, twisting round and round under the Old Sycamore.

Then, everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Dr. Palmetter held the card up to Morgan for the fifth time.

"It's a cat," she answered. That much was obvious. The clock ticked noisily on the wall. She hated coming to these meetings.

"Good, and this one."

The image immediately brought forth a thousand others in her mind. The lines jutting out from a single long and thick line, with buds of green at the end. But what was it called? The pain came back throbbing and she put a finger to her temple. She could feel the word coming up through her throat, coming to rest on her tongue.

"Tr-" she attempted. Her heart sank. "I'm sorry, I know what it is, I just can't…"

"Tree," the doctor answered.

Morgan ground her teeth and she nodded her head. How could she not remember that? The familiar hot pricking of tears began to threaten but she blinked them back. Crying would only make things worse.

Dr. Palmetter sat back in her gray chair, crossing her legs for the thousandth time that hour. A gray light shone through the gray shutters. A slightly lighter shade of gray curtains framed the window, which displayed the depressing gray November conditions. _She's a vampire_, Morgan thought. _That's the only explanation. Her office reminds me of a coffin_.

"Miss Bingham, you have to stop being so hard on yourself," she explained blandly. "You have to understand that progress-"

"Is p-product of time," Morgan finished, managing a slight smile.

Dr. Palmetter did not return it.

Morgan sighed, "I'm sorry, but it's… easy to be fr-rustrated."

"Understandable, would you like to talk about it?"

She shrugged, "I'm not exactly sure what else needs to be said."

The clock ticked as silence fuzzed between them. A gray wind knocked at the window. Morgan rubbed her palms on her jeans. It made her feel calm when her emotions started to spike. "My grant application is… due this w-week."

Dr. Palmetter nodded. Not at all encouragingly.

"I h-have to give a present-a…tion for it, and I- I'm nervous. You k-know, with my s-tutter and everything."

Dr. Palmetter nodded again. Morgan wondered if she was actually listening.

"Miss Bingham, it has only been six months since you sustained a near-fatal head injury. I think it is all right if you decide to forfeit this presentation in favor of rest and relaxation. It takes years for some people to come back from these episodes. You have already made considerable progress already, but I need you to stop pushing yourself so hard."

_What the hell do you know?_ Morgan wanted to scream. The one thing she didn't have was time. As a PhD student she needed grant money to eat and live. Forfeiting just was not in the cards for now. The tears threatened again. It was getting harder to blink them back.

"Looks like our time is up," Dr. Palmetter said, forcing a smile.

Morgan smiled back, trying to make it as genuine as possible.

"I will see you two weeks from now. Until then, take these cards with you and practice as often as possible," she said, standing with her and shaking Morgan's hand weakly.

"Sounds good, Doc," Morgan answered, taking her cane and making her way out of the awful gray office and into the awful gray day.

Six months ago Morgan was on her way to becoming one of the most respected PhD students at Oxford University, being groomed for academic greatness. Now she was hobbling out of the office of her annoyingly unemotional, graying shrink. The cold day hit her like a slap in the face. At least she was deemed sound enough to operate a car. Reaching the door to her old Subaru, Morgan audibly sighed in relief and climbed in.

It was hard not to go back to that day in May. She found herself revisiting it daily. She put the car in gear, desperately trying not to remember the feeling of her falling, the pit of fear in her stomach, the sharp and shooting pain on point of impact. Closing her eyes, she backed out of the parking lot and drove into the slog of traffic.

* * *

Loki's impact caused the trees to shake. He lay at the bottom of a beveled piece of Earth, the dirt churned up from his fall. His eyes closed, he took a moment to orient himself, calmly flexing his muscles to check if he were unharmed. Taking in a deep breath he shakily stood.

The next order of business was observing his surroundings. Squinting his eyes, he climbed out of the bevel and looked around. It seemed that he was near some sort of agricultural land. Rolling hills of crops were lying dead under a thin sheath of snow. The thicknesses of trees were dusted with white as well.

He wanted to yell. He wanted to scream, shaking the earth under his feet one more time. Hadn't he done that not a year ago? Hadn't he stood at the threshold of total power, throwing a fist in the face of order?

Banished to Earth. Banished here with no power, as weak and feeble as a mortal. The unfamiliar feeling of his body, the joints connected so delicately to flesh and tendons was foreign. How odd. How terrible.

He suddenly dropped to his knees in clumsiness. His eyes felt heavy.

"No," he breathed, disbelieving this embarrassing state of himself. "No."

"Hello?"

There was a voice in the distance. His eyes shot up. A blurred figure was afar. He narrowed his eyes but they were becoming more and more part of the landscape, slowly fading into the greens and browns of the surrounding foliage.

Loki closed his eyes.

* * *

Morgan hardly knew how she should handle this situation. It was clear that he was unconscious. It was also clear that he was much larger than she. She bent down, turning him over to face her.

"Weird," she muttered. The man was handsome. All long, dark locks complementing a pale and angular face. His dress was odd too; a whole leather ensemble complete with different shades of golds and greens. She tapped the back of her hand against his cheek lightly, seeing if the contact would wake him up. No budge. She shrugged.

Instead, Morgan turned her head to examine the damage done to her property.

"What the hell did you do, fall from space?" she voiced out loud. The shovel shaped depression could have been made by a meteorite. She leaned on her cane, trying to look deeper into the pit.

A cough caused her to stop. The man was waking up.

"You okay?" she asked as his eyes fluttered open. They were a resplendent green. She felt her heart skip for a half-second. Morgan placed a hand on his shoulder, as though she were trying to keep from falling into them.

"Unhand me, you wench!" he wheezed, weakly knocking her hand away.

"Pardon?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"My name…" he began, attempting to sit up, "is Loki of Asgard, God of Mischief, and I shall not be peddled by some untitled maid of Midgard."

Morgan brought her eyebrows together. The man who described himself as Loki nearly fell over once more. She brought her hands to his shoulders again, trying to keep him stable. "St-steady there… b-big guy," she murmured, helping him up.

He again tried to keep her away, batting his hands at her.

What did he say he was? A God of Mischief. She best of all knew what head injuries could do to a person. Perhaps she needed to get a little more creative with this one. "Loki," she tried, "I am a s-servant here, y-your… f-father sent me t-to take… c-are of you."

"How dare you address me informally!" he spat, regaining some of his strength. He now stood to his full height, albeit still a little unsure of his balance, but he towered over her nonetheless. She found her nose almost settling into his solar plexus.

"S-sorry… I me-meant my L-Lord," she tried.

He did a shallow nod of his head, as though he were approving of her. He held out his arm promptly, and she grasped his forearm. "N-now we're ge-getting somewhere," she muttered, beginning her descent from the rim of the bevel.

Ascending was certainly much easier. Woozy Loki and shaky Morgan both attempted to keep their centers of gravity at certain detriment to the other. Loki dealt with the situation by crying out very odd and unwarranted insults. Morgan tried to lean back, but she slipped, knocking Loki to the ground along with her.

"Imbecilic woman!" he shouted, hoisting her up. They had both thankfully tumbled to horizontal ground.

She picked up her cane and dusted off her jeans, which were now getting soaked with snow. "Th-this way," she ground out, beckoning him to follow. When he tripped on the end of the cape he was wearing, she took his arm once more and led him toward the house.

"I have never been thus treated by a slave in the entirety of my immortality!" he admonished. "I shall report you to your superiors and you shall certainly never set foot in the likes of Asgard again, so help me! I will make sure you guard pigs from now on…"

Morgan allowed him to rant and rave, nodding her head rather encouragingly at him. She felt the urge to ask, "And how does that make you feel?" in a depressing, gray tone. She found herself sniggering as she helped the strange man up the stairs, one by one as he rambled on and continued to threaten her.

"What impudence!" he screeched at her upturned lips.

"How _dare_ you! How… Mark my words wench I shall-" Then suddenly he was silenced, having slipped on some ice on the top step and falling in front of the door.

"If… you w-would have l-listened, y-you would ha-have… heard m-e tell y-you ab-about the i-ice," she said, smiling. The grey November day had just become a whole lot more interesting. She wiped her nose, slightly relieved that he was still breathing as evidenced by the smoky air issuing from his nostrils.

Morgan looked up as she spotted a familiar car pulling into the driveway.

"What have you dragged home this time?" A voice called to her from the window of the car.

"Wait until you get a load of _this_!"


End file.
